Prosecutors did not press charges against West and the 18 others who were arrested.

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Margaret Flowers, a co-organizer of the October 2011 movement, told POLITICO on Monday that West had given a speech to about 500 people in Freedom Plaza on Sunday before “spontaneously” marching over to the Supreme Court with about 200 demonstrators. The Princeton professor and outspoken critic of President Barack Obama was arrested when the group refused to leave the grounds of the high court.

The message the group was rallying behind was the “Supreme Court giving too much power to the corporations … and not holding corporations accountable for their behavior,” Powers said.

Ann Wilcox, the attorney representing the group that was arrested, told POLITICO earlier on Monday that the arraignment in D.C. Superior Court related to a violation of Title 40 of the U.S. Code – demonstrating in the Supreme Court building or its grounds.

The penalty for the misdemeanor can be up to 60 days in jail or a $100 fine, she said.

Wilcox also said the decision to hold the protesters — some of whom are from the D.C. area — in jail overnight was “really unexpected,” since local citizens are normally released.

“Sometimes they hold people to send a message to a group of people, and that’s certainly possible in this case,” Wilcox said. “To hold everyone in the group and to hold Dr. West – it is a little unusual.”

A spokesman for the D.C. police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Over the last few weeks, the October 2011 and Stop the Machine protesters have made Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington their home base; other members of the Occupy D.C. movement have been camping out in McPherson Square just a few blocks away.

West, a civil rights activist who supported Obama for president, teamed up with PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley to launch a multi-city poverty bus tour earlier this year, and has spoken out against the president’s performance, especially as it relates to alleviating the challenges facing the black community.

West has also accused Obama of being “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats,” and suggested that the president “has a certain fear of free black men,” according to the Boston Globe.